Audi will use up 24 billion euros ($29 billion) to build-up technology and grow production, boosting its 5-year venture arrange by 2 billion euros ($2.44 billion) as it pursues BMW for the top spot in luxury car sales. Around 16.8 billion euros, or 70% of the aggregate, is reserved for new models like the Q1 subcompact SUV, the organization said Saturday in an announcement.
Audi hopes to sell a record of more than 1.7 million automobiles this year.
“We are making huge investments in the pioneering regions of electric mobility, connectivity and lightweight development,” Audi CEO Rupert Stadler said in the announcement.
The brand expects to build its lineup to 60 models by 2020 from 50. Audi, the No. 2 brand in worldwide luxury auto sales, intends to beat BMW in conveyances before the decade’s over. The race tightened this year. BMW surpassed Audi by only 42,600 autos in the initial 11 months of 2014 contrasted with 54,600 a year back.
Audi’s financial plan is a part of Volkswagen’s 85.6 billion-euro venture to beat Toyota Motor Corp. in worldwide vehicle industry sales. Audi intends to spend the equivalent 4.8 billion euros a year, a boost from the past progressing 5-year plan that called for contributing 4.4 billion euros yearly on new vehicles and growing manufacturing capacity.
‘Watchful eye’
“In spite of the development in total venture, we will keep a watchful eye on the forthcoming difficulties and implement the needed cost discipline,” CFO Axel Strotbek said.
Audi, which already outsells BMW in China and Europe, is planning to catch in the United States.
In November, it revealed the Prolog idea car in Los Angeles to showcase a more violent design.
The organization also arranges an electric hybrid for the US in 2017 to defy Tesla Motors Inc. and is constructing a processing plant in Mexico that will begin building the Q5 SUV in 2016 for America.
Audi said on Saturday it will employ an added 850 laborers at the Mexico plant next year.
BMW is looking to battle off Audi and Mercedes-Benz, which also wants the top spot, with its own extension, adding up cars like the $44,700 X4 roadster like SUV and the $135,700 i8 plug-in hybrid sports car.
Under its past plan drawn up a year back, Audi declared ventures of 22 billion euros over the 2014-18 period. Parent VW in November divulged auto ventures of 85.6 billion euros through 2019, slightly more than a year earlier, even as the carmaker is pushing cost cuts at its core brand.